Here comes Peter Cottontail...

Does anyone have a good explanation for the Easter bunny? If so let me know, because I answered a lot of questions this year about his purpose and what he has to do with the Easter holiday, and I'm just grateful that Nolan didn't push for better answers because they were pretty dicey at best. Thankfully we have the resurrection story down pretty well and it makes lots of sense to all of us, so we mostly focused on that since it is the reason for Easter anyway.

That said, we still had our share of Easter egg coloring, egg hunting and Easter basket surprises from said bunny.

Our Easter egg decorating techniques aren't very extravagant. Crayons, dye & stickers. That's all I can handle with two little ones participating!

As you can see a few end up getting eaten before being decorated as well.

Easter Morning!! We love the looks on their faces when they see their surprises.

The E.B. was notified of Nolan's intense interest in Star Wars. Ever seen a kid so pleased with a box of Band Aids?

Mmm..Easter M&M's...

...and Goldfish of course.

Thankfully Kenny was available for those hard to reach eggs.

Nolan was given two foam swords to fill in for Light sabers. We do a lot of Light saber battles in our house. The one that Audrey is holding is what Nolan had been using-he pulled it out of our bucking bronco horse and so it's been without a handle for quite a while. This is a bit more fun, and definitely not as painful if you get whacked. Love how they are teaming up on Kenny.

I must say that I am proud to hold the title of "Better light saber fighter than Dad", Nolan informed me of that the other day. He said that I don't hit as hard, and I jump around a lot more like Yoda. Nice. I'll take that compliment any day.

Our Milwaukee pals

In about one month from now, we will be saying our goodbyes to a group of people that been our extended family for the past four years. I tear up every time I allow myself to even think about it longer than 30 seconds. That said, I'm truly grateful that you cannot see me while I am typing this. These kids have been my kids first and best friends. Their mommies have been like loving aunts and the same goes for their Dads. The husbands talk shop with mine and actually understand what is being said. The wives swap kids stories, get advice, laugh and occasionally cry together. We attend church together, have weekly playgroup, have date night groups, attend birthday parties, and celebrate new additions to each family as they come along. It has doubled in size since we first got here, and I'm sure that will continue even as each year a few of the families move away. These are great people. They deserve every bit of happiness that they will find in this life. We love them, are thankful for every single memory that we have made together and are thankful that Heavenly Father put them in our lives path to help us enjoy our time in Med school. I'm so thankful for blogs, and that most of us keep ours updated occasionally so that we can stay updated with what new and wonderful things are happening in their lives. Because I can't possibly think that we will be saying goodbye forever.

Nope. I won't accept that. So just in case our paths don't cross again at least we'll have all of these great memories, and a way to vicariously live them together through pictures!

Here are just a few from the last month:

Benson's 3rd birthday party at the fire station!

Playgroup Easter egg hunt

Date night group

Watching the thunder and lightning storm together instead of the movie.

So much fun.

To all of our friends here in Milwaukee, thank you so much for sharing your lives with us-it makes for some great pictures!

Betty Brinn

On April 12th I offered to drop Kenny off at his Alpha Omega Alpha induction luncheon (YAY Kenny!) which just happened to be held at the Coast restaurant which is also in the same building as the Betty Brinn Children's museum. That way, we have a great excuse to visit the museum, and we help cut down on parking costs. Which would have been great...except that when we returned to our van, I discovered a $35 parking ticket for parking in a loading zone!

(I guess I shouldn't have thought that I could beat a parking garage with the strangely open spaces nearby with a large truck blocking the NO PARKING sign...bugger.)

Regardless, we spent a good 3 hrs at the museum playing, exploring, laughing, and eating. This is definitely a top 5 destination for us! Meanwhile, Kenny was recognized for being the amazing student that he has been in Med School and got a tour of the Milwaukee Art Museum-so we all had some great culture that day! :)

The Domes

A few days after the visit to Discovery World we hit the Domes for a quick visit before preschool. Mondays are free for Milwaukee residents, which is always great-but this particular day was packed! Lots of school groups and people trying to trick their minds in to believing that the snow still falling outside was not really happening. It was still a nice trip though, they had a fairy tale theme in the show dome and even a few trains running around.

Kids tour of Milwaukee

With the comfort and stress of having Match day come and go, and learning that our time here in Milwaukee is now limited, I have been trying to go down the list that I made a couple months ago of things that we need to do before we are no longer Milwaukee residents. There really is a lot to do with kids here and I know we are going to miss it.

First up, Discovery World. We bought a membership last May for an awesome price and have enjoyed this museum, the Discovery Gateway in SLC a couple times and even OMSI in Portland, OR. It was a great investment.

The best part of this trip was that we had no where else to be, and both kids were very interested in seeing everything and were very well behaved. Gotta love it when that happens!

Audrey was hilarious when it came to crossing the bridges in the aquarium rooms. Portions of the bridge have glass that you walk over while the fish are swimming underneath or above you...she was really leery of that. She would walk around the border that still had carpet, or climb up on the stroller to get across but would not take one step on the glass.

Cheers!

Can't you just see the uncertainty on Drey's face?

She was completely enamoured with this box fish though!

Audrey wasn't afraid to take a rest on a bed of nails either. Nolan-not so much.

See they really do like each other!

How to pay back our Med school loans...

I think I've figured out a quick solution to pay off our Med school debt. I think I'll contact Nutella's advertising department and offer to allow them to use the following photos to advertise their delicious product. I think these photos should easily bring in a 6 figure amount!

Mmm...yummy.

In case you hadn't heard...

We MATCHED at the MAYO CLINIC in ROCHESTER, MN for Kenny's Radiation Oncology residency!! We're so excited with the results and as I'm sure most of you who read this already know that was our first choice. We'll be moving to La Crosse, WI in June for Kenny to complete his Intern Year training at the Gundersen Lutheren Hospital which is a wonderful regional hospital, that has great training and benefits, and we'll only be about an hour away from Rochester so when the time comes for house hunting we'll be a short drive away. Then in July 2012 we'll make the move (and hopefully be purchasing our first home) for our four year stay in Rochester.

For as much as we've been anticipating this huge event in our lives you would have thought that I would have blogged about it sooner eh? Well, what can I say, I'm just not great at keeping this as updated as I'd like. I write posts in my head...I just never get them online. Any who..here is a few photos of our big day. We had our friend Jocelyn babysit the kids, who had a wonderful time at her house while we were at the Match Day activities at MCW. I don't think they missed us one bit really! Then after we picked them up and told Nolan where we were going he was so excited-Rochester was his first choice too-he loved it there. He talked about it non-stop the rest of the day to whomever would listen.

We met up with our pals Todd & Jessica Pitts and their two adorable girls Haley and Malia at Stonefire Pizza company to celebrate. We enjoyed the buffet, watching the kids play and mostly just the relief that the day had finally come!

Here are a few pictures that we remembered to take. We also had a friend take a video of us opening the letter, and our reactions are priceless (to me at least) but I couldn't get my camera to transfer them over the correctly so guess I'll have to figure that out later.

Us, about 5 seconds before Kenny ripped open the envelope!

This is what the inside of Match Day Activities look like-lots of bodies, excitement and cheering-it was great.

Todd & Jessica Pitts-they are heading to San Antonio, TX for Todd's Orthopedic Residency. We are definitely going to miss these guys.

Malia and Audrey at Stonefire's water table- a favorite destination for them.

Drey trying her hand at face painting.

This was the highlight of the day for Nolan-he's been dying to go on the "Up, up, up, Down, down, down ride" for a long time! Kenny was a good sport and accompanied him-he looks so big compared to those kids! :)

December 2010 Continued

Sure enough Santa came, and having four kids to enjoy Christmas with was a blast! That was a wrapping paper mess like none other! We took tons of pictures, but instead of posting all of the pictures (we wouldn't want people to actually SEE how spoiled our children are) I'll just be sure that everyone on the Whittaker side who didn't take like 200 photos themselves gets a copy of our 200 photos. :)

We had a great time in Utah and got in lots of family time. Then before we knew it we were in a rental car making a very treacherous 12 hour drive to Richland, WA to visit Kenny's family for the big New Year's party at the Kurtzes!

Not a fun drive-WAY too much snow driving. My husband has the most amazing ability to drive in the worst conditions with way too many distractions and still get us all there safely. So thankful for that!

Mercedes & Nolan vs Allyson & Audrey on Mario Kart Wii

This is where Nolan's Wii addiction started, and only got worse as the month went on!

Nolan & Shelby getting ready to do calendars

Tyler and his little shadow

Audrey teaching Great Grandma Wing how to load up the Nerf assault weapon

We enjoyed quite the spread of yummy food, these poor little penguins didn't have a chance of survival.

Deep conversation with Great Grandpa Wing & Nolan

Giving loves to Great Grandma Wing before we headed off to Kelso.